Yeremia 7:5-6

7:5 You must change ¹  the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly. ²  7:6 Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. ³  Stop killing innocent people ⁴  in this land. Stop paying allegiance to ⁵  other gods. That will only bring about your ruin. ⁶ 

Yeremia 21:12

21:12 O royal family descended from David. ⁷ 

The Lord says:

‘See to it that people each day ⁸  are judged fairly. ⁹ 

Deliver those who have been robbed from those ¹⁰  who oppress them.

Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you.

It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out

because of the evil that you have done. ¹¹ 

Yeremia 22:3

22:3 The Lord says, “Do what is just and right. Deliver those who have been robbed from those ¹²  who oppress them. Do not exploit or mistreat foreigners who live in your land, children who have no fathers, or widows. ¹³  Do not kill innocent people ¹⁴  in this land.

[7:5]  ¹ tn The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[7:5]  ² tn Heb “you must do justice between a person and his fellow/neighbor.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[7:6]  ³ tn Heb “Stop oppressing foreigner, orphan, and widow.”

[7:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “Stop shedding innocent blood.”

[7:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “going/following after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[7:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “going after other gods to your ruin.”

[21:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “house of David.” This is essentially equivalent to the royal court in v. 11.

[21:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “to the morning” = “morning by morning” or “each morning.” See Isa 33:2 and Amos 4:4 for parallel usage.

[21:12]  ⁹ sn The kings of Israel and Judah were responsible for justice. See Pss 122:5. The king himself was the final court of appeals judging from the incident of David with the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14), Solomon and the two prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16-28), and Absalom’s attempts to win the hearts of the people of Israel by interfering with due process (2 Sam 15:2-4). How the system was designed to operate may be seen from 2 Chr 19:4-11.

[21:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[21:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Lest my wrath go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out because of the evil of your deeds.”

[22:3]  ¹² tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[22:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “aliens, orphans, or widows” treating the terms as generic or collective. However, the term “alien” carries faulty connotations and the term “orphan” is not totally appropriate because the Hebrew term does not necessarily mean that both parents have died.

[22:3]  sn These were classes of people who had no one to look out for their rights. The laws of Israel, however, were careful to see that their rights were guarded (cf. Deut 10:18) and that provision was made for meeting their needs (cf. Deut 24:19-21). The Lord promised to protect them (cf. Ps 146:9) and a curse was called down on any who deprived them of justice (cf. Deut 27:19).

[22:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Do not shed innocent blood.”

[22:3]  sn Do not kill innocent people. For an example of one of the last kings who did this see Jer 36:20-23. Manasseh was notorious for having done this and the book of 2 Kgs attributes the ultimate destruction of Judah to this crime and his sin of worshiping false gods (2 Kgs 21:16; 24:4).